Expert: European governments can legally ban West Bank goods

JERUSALEM (JTA) — European governments are fully within their legal rights to boycott products made by Jews in the West Bank, a British legal expert has concluded.

The 60-page opinion by James Crawford, a professor of international law at Cambridge University in Britain, has been shown to senior officials of European Union member states in the past few months, according to the UK Independent, which also saw the opinion.

"(T)here do not appear to be any European Commission laws which could be breached by a member state taking the decision to ban the import of settlement produce on public policy grounds," Crawford reportedly states in his opinion.

Some EU states are considering measures ranging from relabeling West Bank goods to reflect that they were made in settlements to an outright ban on their import.

The opinion will be published this week by the Trades Union Congress, according to the Independent. The Congress has been working to approve a ban on the purchase of goods produced in the settlements, though it does not support a boycott of Israel as a whole.